Dateline: King, North Carolina.
It looks like Americans United for Separation of Church and State have won another one. They have pressured the small city of King to remove a metal sculpture depicting a soldier kneeling in prayer before a cross from a city park where it has been for ten years. The fact that the memorial was paid for by private donations does not matter.
After Americans United brought the suit against them, the City Council voted 3-2 to remove the statue in order to end the lawsuit. It seems that they were also getting pressure from their insurance company. What remains now is an empty hole where the statue once stood. In addition to removing the statue, the city has agreed to pay Americans United $500,000 for legal costs the group incurred in bringing the suit.
But the $500,000 settlement was not all that was paid out. It seems that $1 is also being paid to Afghanistan War veteran Steven Hewett. He is the one who actually initiated the suit and simply got Americans United to represent him. He claimed that the existence of the statue violated his constitutional rights. His comment was that, “I proudly served alongside a diverse group of soldiers with a variety of different religious beliefs. The City of King should be honoring everyone who served our country, not using their service as an excuse to promote a single religion.”
Oh, the irony! What no one in this whole mess seems to realize is that what Steven Hewett and Americans United did was not to remove religion from the public square. What they did was substitute the beliefs of one faith system for that of another. So, instead of the Christian faith having a place in the public square, Secular Humanism gets to take its place. In the process, these activists are forcing Christians to adhere to their faith.
This is what happens when people (judges, lawyers, insurance companies, politicians and the population at large) don’t understand the actual meaning of the concept of “separation of church and state” – or the very nature of faith, for that matter.
Those who care need to do more than just complain. They better get up to speed on what is actually happening, strand strong in the culture, and push back against these wrong ideas. And most importantly, they need to share Christ with the Secular Humanists who are forcing their faith on the public.